Gabriel Walsh was born in Dublin. At the age of 15, while working as the waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin he met Irish Opera singer Margaret Burke-Sheridan (1889-1958). This encounter would change his life.

Early years

Margaret Burke-Sheridan convinces his family to allow the teenager to move to the US to further his education. Walsh travels to New York to live with a host family where he completes his education. Walsh attended the Lee Strasberg School of Acting in New York and L.A.

Career

Since the 1970s, Walsh has either been writing screen plays, acting, co-producing or writing for the Evening Echo newspaper in Cork.

In 1970, Walsh wrote the screen-play Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx is a 1970 film directed by Waris Hussein and written by Gabriel Walsh. It starred Gene Wilder as the titular Quackser Fortune, an autistic Irishman who falls in love with an American exchange student after she almost runs him over.-Selected cast:*Gene...

 which stars Gene Wilder as Quackser Fortune. In 1971, the screen play is nominated for best comedy written for the screen at the Writers Guild of America

Writers Guild of America

The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....

.

Quackser Fortune grabbed the attention of Jean Renoir. Gene Wilder, in his Kiss Me Like A Stranger book published by St Martin's Press, quotes the legendary French Director as saying "not since Chaplin have I come across such as character as this Quackser".

Film and TV work

Some of the films Walsh appeared in as an actor included "Night Flowers" 1979 (he also wrote the screenplay), Heaven's Gate(1981), "The returning" (1983) and featured in TV series "Wild Wild West" in 1970.

Plays

The author wrote several plays including “The Brandy Dancers” in 1978 and “Hearts” which was produced by Eric Morris Theatre in LA.

Books

In 2012, Gabriel Walsh's memoirs "Maggies' Breakfast", based about his "life-changing" encounter with Margaret Burke Sheridan, are to be published by Poolbeg Publishing, in Ireland.

External links

• eFilmCritic review